In your first post you said you used a stabalizer. What is that used for in beer? I know it is used in wine but it is not supposed to be used in beer. Also that's a lot of chocolate malt, and roasted malt and brown sugar. I'd check your choice of the amoumt of your ingredients. To clean I use bleach without any trouble if you rince well with HOT water. To sanitize I use star-san like alemonkey. Also did you steep those cracked grains? They aren't meant to be boiled to advoid leaching of tannins into the beer.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I went with a nonrinse sanitizer for the AG, and I took my time (made sure my wife was gone the whole day so I didnt feel hurried). I made a Honey-Cinnamon Stout, the color is Black to say the least but it has a very pleasent aroma, and the wort tasted wonderful I can only imagine what it will taste like after the firmentation. I used 2lbs raw honey, and 1 lb of dark brown sugar as my fermentables in this batch to accompany my grains. I also kept it simple, using basic ingrediants. When the 1 stage is over I will give you guys an update, I think I will definately use a carboy for stage 2 just so I can keep an eye on things (just an excuse to go shopping). I guess the only question I have for this one is what kind of clarifier do you guys recommend for a stout? I do not want to rob any of the color, or flavor.

Honestly, what do you need a clarifier in a stout for? I have made some really wicked stouts and porters, and the only thing I've ever used was a bit of bentonite in one. The others I've just let condition in secondary for 2 or 3 weeks, then bottle, and let stand for a month. No issues at all. Except that everyone drinks my stout and I gotta make a lot more.

I wouldn't bother with a clarifier either. The only thing I ever use is Irish Moss in lighter colored beers. I've found that with a good boil and quick cooldown it clears up naturally after a couple weeks in the fermenter

Your recipe sounds like it will be very tasty, but I wouldn't be surprised if it needs to age a long time. I made a pretty big Strong Ale a couple of years ago with a full pound of brown sugar. It took a year to taste decent. It's now over 2 years old, and I just remembered that I have a few bottles in the closet. Cracked open a couple last night and it was excellent. I think any time you use a lot of sugar it needs extra aging to get rid of that funky sugar taste.

I have never actually used brown sugar before. Was there a particular reason that you used it? I am guessing you wanted to make sure it was a little sweet which would make sense for a stout. Feeback is needed here with this suggestion as I am not as experienced with specialty grains as many here.... but if you want to assure sweetness you could replace the brown sugar with a malt that does not ferment and is sweet... crystal malt for instance gives a sweetness taste. I would lower the 1 pounders to 1/2. Remember you are adding adjunts and not base malts. Recalling what I read... those malts dont ferment which is putting a lot of unfermentables in your beer and they also contribute to the smell you are discribing (1/3 of what you have in there falls in the unfermentables/hard to ferment catagory). If you want to assure yourself of a darker color you could add some black patent malt. I believe you dont want to add any more then 1/2 pound with BPM though. Again BPM gives a burnt smell if used too much.

Great thanks for all the help here guys, here is how I went on my AG - now again this is my very first AG but from the looks of it - It is going to be beautiful.... I went with:
2lbs Pale Malts
1lb light Crystal Malts
1lb Black Pentant Malts
1/2lb Roasted Barley
2lbs Raw Honey
1lb Dark Brown Sugar
4 cinnamon sticks
1oz Magnum Hops
1oz Fuggle Hops

The reason I use Brown Sugar is because brown sugar has molassas in it which gives a great flavor to stout in my opinion and the sugar aids the yeast to grow in the beginning as honey can take a while to break down. I fully expect this stout to take a long time, but patience is a virtue and if it comes out half as good as I expect its going to be the bomp

i could be wrong but arent you going a little heavy on the adjuncts? my calculation show @ 75 percent utilization youll get 1.019 sg from the 4.5 lbs of grains your mashing and 1.024 sg from the honey/sugar. for a combined sg of 1.043...thats more than 50 percent fermentables from the honey/brown sugar.

You didn't do a secondary. You added the priming solution and bottled. Did you kick up or suck up a bunch of the sediment at the bottom of the fermenter? If you had lots of sediment kicked up, the beer would seem chunky, hard to siphon, and would have somewhat of a sour yeasty bite.

Since it sounds like you had good sanitation and a viable yeast, maybe something as simple as better siphoning technique can be the solution.

The good news is, if you siphoned sediment filled beer into the bottles, eventually it will settle back out, probably yeilding a decent brew. You'll just end up with a thicker layer of sediment at the bottom of each bottle.

Regarding your recipe, I'm afraid it won't taste much like a stout. I think you need to up your pale malt considerably (6 lbs sounds better). You could probably cut the amount of honey in half, or eliminate it entirely, the brown sugar is fine, the crystal malt is fine. I like to add a bit of Munich malt to add a little malty taste to my stouts and porters, but that's just me. I'm not a big fan of cinnamon in a stout, but if you like that flavor, go for it. As far as the dark malts, I like to use 1/3 lb black patent, 1/3 lb roasted barley, and 1/3 lb chocolate malt. it usually provides plenty of dark color, roasty flavor, and a nice chocolaty taste that I prefer.